The present invention relates to epoxy monomers and thermoplastic polymer products thereof.
Thermoplastic polymers made by reacting diglycidyl monomers with aromatic diols are well known. See, e.g., N. H. Reinking, et al., "Polyhydroxyethers. I. Effect of Structure on Properties of High Molecular Weight Polymers from Dihydric Phenols and Epichlorohydrin", 7 J. Applied Polymer Sci. 2135 (1963) and N. H. Reinking, et al., "Polyhydroxyethers. II. Effect of Structure on Properties of High Molecular Weight Copolymers from Dihydric Phenol Mixtures and Epichlorohydrin", 7 J. Applied Polymer Sci. 2145 (1963). For example, bisphenol A, diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A and a polymer formed by the reaction of those two compounds are all commercially available.
It would be advantageous to improve upon certain properties of known thermoplastic epoxy polymers. First, polymers with better oxygen barrier properties would be desirable. Second, current technology does not provide a mechanism to place particular active sites, such as an amine or a carboxylic acid moiety, on a thermoplastic epoxy polymer.